


Offices of Grief

by ArcaneAddict



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 06:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13140993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcaneAddict/pseuds/ArcaneAddict
Summary: Inspired by the dark winter evening; a father who has lost a son and a son without a father. Anduin expects Greymane to manipulate his grief...not to share it.





	Offices of Grief

When Greymane had come to him, Anduin expected the man to launch into a rage-fueled speech about the necessity of attacking Sylvanas. About revenge. Or justice. Whatever word the worgen king judged most likely to bend the younger man to his will.  


Instead (having made the customary greetings) Greymane was silent. He took a seat across from Anduin and stared into the fire, his sharp features outlined by shadow and illuminated by the flickering light of the flames. Outside, the harsh Stormheim winds caught and tore at the keep like a dog with a rat. Anduin rose and went to a small table.

“Care for a drink, your grace?” he asked; he was going to partake whatever Genn decided. 

Truth be told, he’d already put away more than a little of the whiskey already and he felt reluctant to allow its warmth to ebb from his veins.

Greymayne stirred like a man from a dream as his gaze flickered from the fire to Anduin.

“No one should drink alone,” he said.

Despite his words, he stared into the glass without partaking as Anduin returned to his own chair.

“Forgive me,” Anduin said, though he felt there was nothing to forgive, not really, “But I was pondering the reason for your visit. Am I meant to tease it out of you? Because I feel a distinct lack of appetite for doing so.”  


The whiskey edged his words. Greymane emptied his glass and leaned forward in the armchair, his hands clasped loosely together around the now empty vessel.  


“No,” he said slowly, “I wouldn’t ask it. You deserve---“

He hesitated and Anduin felt irrational anger flash through him at his words. Anduin, you deserve a living father. Anduin, you deserve to see his betrayers killed. Anduin, you deserve to be still a prince and not a grief-stricken king Now, he thought, now comes the question, the demand, the emotional blackmail designed to draw him into whatever idiotic plan the other king had devised.

“Damn it, Greymane, would you just get to your point?” 

Greymane set his glass to one side.

“I came here,” he said, softly, steadily, “Because today is the day that my son Liam died, now…six years ago.” He ran one calloused hand over his beard and shook his head, as if in disbelief at the idea. “You lost your father, Anduin. I thought, perhaps foolishly, that we might shared a common pain between us…and a pain shared is lessened.”

His deep voice trembled a little when he spoke his son’s name. It felt foreign to see Greymane show this vulnerable side of himself. Anduin felt the hard weight inside his chest soften and it felt dangerously like he might come undone if the other man spoke anymore.

“I am…sorry. I did not know,” he stuttered.

Genn waved the apology aside with a dismissive gesture.

“Why should you,” he said gravely, “Mine are an old man’s sorrows, young Wrynn. I did not come to burden you with my grief.”

The young priest-king felt his own hand clench with dangerous strength around the empty glass in his fist. 

“I can’t,” he said, as the weight blossomed in his chest as if it might suffocate him, “I---can’t talk about this, Genn.”

He risked a glance at the other man and found Greymane’s gaze once again fixated on the fire. The worgen’s dark eyes glistened with dangerous brightness and Anduin had to look away, had to drink to push back the tidal wave that threatened to sweep him off his feet.

“I know.”

From anyone else, even from Greymane himself at another time, the sentiment would have felt false and forced. But now, spoken with such weary tenderness, Anduin could only accept the man’s words as another familiar with the pain of loss. He felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment at his own inability to accept the other’s kindness, if only from the conviction that to accept comfort was to lose whatever composure he’d managed to cobble together since his father’s death.

“Then…I will listen,” Anduin surprised even himself as he spoke, “I…that is all I think I can offer to you.”

Greymane’s answer came, rough with the tears that now fell down his face, but firm in its conviction.

“That is enough.”


End file.
